Occupational Stress and Job Satisfaction in White- and ... - Clute Institute

International Business & Economics Research Journal

Volume 1, Number 12

Occupational Stress And Job Satisfaction In White- And Blue-Collar Workers Rudy Nydegger (E-mail: [email protected]), Union College

Abstract The relationship between job satisfaction and stress has been examined in numerous settings. In the present study, a two-part occupational stress survey was given to140 subjects in white- and blue-collar occupations. Twelve possible stressor variables divided into three levels of stress: independent; group; and organizational were analyzed. A factorial ANOVA analysis was conducted, and revealed that there was a significant main effect result for types of stress experienced by the workers in the two types of organizations, but there were no differences between the organizations in terms of amount or types of stress, nor were there any differences between male and female employees. The relationship between stress and job satisfaction was discussed, and suggestions were made as to ways organizations can improve job satisfaction by paying attention to some of the sources of stress.

1. Introduction

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tress is “an adaptive response, mediated by individual characteristics and/or psychological processes, that is a consequence of any external action, situation, or event that places special physical and/or psychological demands upon a person” (Ivancevich & Matteson, 1980). The external actions, which are beyond a person’s control, that cause physiological, cognitive, and behavioral strain on a person are known as stressors. Occupational stressors cause major problems for both individual organizations and employees themselves. Research by Matteson & Ivancevich (1987) estimated that because of stress-related illness the financial losses to organizations were approximately $60 billion, and that number is likely far higher today. One nationwide survey by Northwestern National Life Insurance Company (1991) demonstrated that 46% of American workers felt that their jobs were very or somewhat stressful. Further, 27% of the respondents claimed that their jobs were the single greatest source of stress in their lives, and 72% experienced frequent physical and mental stress-related problems. One need only to browse through popular, professional, and scholarly publications to find that stress is an increasingly important and relevant topic to people in general, organizations, businesses, researchers, and health care providers and professionals. When stress occurs to individuals, there is not a clear and consistent response to that stress, and there are considerable individual differences in terms of what is stressful, and how that stress is expressed (Greenberg & Baron, 1995). To some degree, the potential stressors that people face depend upon their cognitive appraisal of the stress (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Lazarus’ Transactional Process Theory states that stress occurs when a person perceives a particular situation as threatening, or has the feeling that the situation is beyond his or her control, and that he or she is incapable of coping with the potential danger of the situation. Thus, stress is derived from and the response molded by cognitive processes. A person will develop stress reactions when situations arise that he or she evaluates as stressful (Greenberg & Baron, 1995). With this fact in mind, it must also be remembered that some occupations are inherently more stressful than others, or at least this is the perception. Traditionally, jobs like air traffic controller, police, fire fighters, physicians, dentists, and high-level executives are considered to be stressful, and in fact there are studies that would tend to con____________________ Readers with comments or questions are encouraged to contact the author via email. 35


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firm this. Mohler (1983) found that air traffic controllers do tend to experience high levels of stress on the job. Medical doctors likewise feel that work stress is a problem for them (Krakowski, 1982; Roeske, 1981), and dentistry too, is considered to be high stress (Cooper, Mallinger, & Kahn, 1978; DiMatteo, Shugars, & Hays, 1993). However, it is also true that there are considerable individual differences between people in these occupations in terms of how stressful their jobs seem to be, and some other studies have found results that are somewhat surprising. For example, one study found that among physicians, pharmacists, and nurses, the nurses reported the highest levels of work stress (Wolfgang, 1988). Other interesting studies examined the assumption that police and firefighters experience stress on the job because of the physical danger they face. Rather that being the main source of stress, it was discovered that the excitement and challenge of dealing with potentially dangerous situations was motivating and “enriching” to many police and fire fighters (Jermier, Gamines, & McIntosh, 1989; Riggio & Cole, 1995). In fact, studies of police officers suggest that they suffer from the same sources of stress, such as increased responsibilities and workloads, and difficulties with co-workers as do other occupations (Brown, Cooper, & Kircaldy, 1996). This would indicate, that although it seems logical to assume that some jobs are more stressful than others, it is not clear as to what the actual sources may be for each individual worker, and how that stress is manifested. It does seem clear that jobs become increasingly stressful to the extent that they require: making decisions; constant monitoring of devices or materials; repeated exchange of information with others; unpleasant physical conditions; and performaing unstructured rather than structured tasks (Greenberg & Baron, 1997). This is consistent with research by Marino and White (1985), which found that the severity of organization stressors might be different, based on the level or type of job. The typical sources of work stress may be found in the situation or in the individual workers. Certainly, some workers seem to be more susceptible to stress than others. For example, Type A behavior patterns typified by aggressively pursuing goals, time urgency, underlying hostility, and competitiveness have been related to stressrelated difficulties (Friedman & Rosenman, 1974; Rosenman, 1978). Type A behavior patterns have even been linked to increased levels of cardio-vascular disease (Booth-Kewley & Friedman, 1987; Schauerbroeck, Ganster, & Kemmerer, 1994). It has also been argued that people that have the personality trait of “hardiness” are more resistant to the negative effects of stress (Kobasa, 1982). Organizational sources of stress include a variety of different things. For example, work overload is a frequently cited source of stress as measured by such things as elevated serum cholesterol and increased heart rate (Caplan & Jones, 1975; Cobb & Rose, 1973); psychological stress measures (Spector, 1987; Spector, Dwyer, & Jex, 1988); and lower quality of work and job satisfaction (Kirmeyer & Dougherty, 1988). Work overload has been named as a common source of stress for a variety of occupations such as clerical workers, soldiers, air traffic controllers, and health care workers (Bliese & Halverson, 1996; Carayon, 1994; Iverson, Olekalns, & Erwin, 1998; Shouksmith & Burrough, 1988). It is also true that while having too much to do is stressful, having too little to do is stressful as well (French & Caplan, 1972; Ganster, Fusilier, & Mayes, 1986). A sense of lack of control is also important as a source of stress in the workplace, and particularly if the employee wants to have some input into the job and how it is done (Dwyer & Ganster, 1991; Karasek, 1979). Interpersonal stress can be and is frequently named as a source of stress in organizations as is organizational politics and conflict (Ferris, Frink, Gilmore, & Kacmar, 1994; Matteson & Ivancevich, 1982). It is also true that jobs with difficult and/or uncomfortable work conditions are perceived as stressful (Frese & Zapf, 1988). Research in the past has found that much of the stress in organizations can be tied to such things as role conflict and role ambiguity. In addition, the role of the employee seems to effect the perception of occupational stress. If is often assumed that executives and managers (white-collar workers) perceive more role ambiguity whereas lower level employees (blue-collar) often experience more role conflict. Jackson and Schuler (1985), however, found no relationship between job level and either role conflict or role ambiguity. As the definition of job stress varies from one study to another, this confusion presents one main limitation of research on the identification of stressors in the workplace (Schuler, 1980). This dilemma may be due to the lack of a universal measurement of stressors. Two conflicting theories often applied to the study of occupational stress are Lazarus’ Transactional Process Theory and the Person-Environment Theory.

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Person-Environment Theory (French, Caplan, & Harrison, 1982) is considered one of the most widely accepted explanations for dealing with occupational stress. The theory defined occupational stress in terms of an unsuitable person-environment fit, which results in psychological strain and stress-related physical effects. Other findings, have reported that interactions between the employee and his/her work environment will predict job stress better than either the person or the environment would by himself or herself. Despite these findings, Chemers, et al. (1985), concluded that, although the Person-Environment Fit Theory was useful in measuring and defining job stress, the theory did not produce a highly focused approach. This obviously contrasts with the previously detailed account of Lazarus’ Theory which defines stress in terms of the cognitive appraisal and reaction of the individual, thus providing a very specific and focused approach to defining stress (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). There have been some studies of gender differences in stress-related effects, but the results are mixed and somewhat inconsistent. Most of the research concludes that there is very little evidence that gender differences induced any stress effects in the workplace. Nelson and Quick (1985), however, confirmed that women experience more occupational stress than men because of the difference in job stressors that women face (career blocks, lower salaries, discrimination, and the dynamic of domestic responsibilities and career). Other evidence suggested that workload stressors, overload or underload, were reported by women double that of men (DiSalvo, et al., 1994). Thus, gender differences may not show up in some studies because in a given work environment, men and women may respond differentially to different types of stress, and when assessment of stress allows for these differences to emerge, then they may surface. Obviously, gender differences in workplace stress are subtle, and may reflect differences in role perception between men and women. The present study examines stress in the workplace by looking at a number of variables thought to be related to the experience of occupational stress. Occupations were selected from organizations that could be classified as either blue-collar or white-collar, and all were from about the same levels in their organizations. In addition, we examined the differential effects of different types of stressors, and finally, the gender of the employees was examined as a potentially relevant variable in the effects of workplace stress. This study was based on the Occupational Stress Model described by Matteson and Ivancevich (1980). 2. Method 2.1. Subjects The subjects for this study were 140 employees from four different firms. Two of the firms were typical small manufacturing firms where most of the workers would be considered to be blue-collar. The seventy employees that were used as subjects included line workers, some secretaries, and some supervisors. There were 41 males and 29 females. The mean age of the subjects in these organizations was 38.7 years (males, 40.0 years; females, 30.0 years). The subjects from these organizations had worked in their respective organizations for four years with a range from one to ten years. The other two firms were more traditionally white-collar types—one a college, and the other a health care organization. In the health care organization the subjects were line employees up to lower levels of management, but no medical or nursing personnel were used. In the college there were subjects that were departmental assistants, secretaries, lower-level administrators, and professors. There were 40 males and 30 females in this sample, and the mean age was 45.6 years (males, 47.3 years; females 42.4 years). The average employee from these latter two organizations had worked for the organization an average of eight years with a range of four to twenty years. These organizations were used because they were representative of the different types of jobs that are generally considered to be white-collar and blue-collar. The employees that were selected as subjects were selected at different levels that were considered to be representative of the bulk of the workforce in the organizations. The gender of subjects attempted to represent the typical balance of males and females in these organizations as well.

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2.2. Materials Questions for the survey were drawn from the 1995 APME Newsroom Management Committee Stress Survey, the Stress Assessment Questionnaire (Hellriegle & Slocum, 1989), the 1996 OH&S Hazard Sheet Stress Survey, the 1997 Job Stress Quiz, the 1986 Stress Assessment Questionnaire, and the 1998 Stress Assessment Questionnaire and Report. Questions from these sources were combined into a comprehensive Occupational Stress Survey that contained two parts. Part One of the survey contained 60 scaled questions concerning stressors in a worker’s life on the job. Each question was a five-point Likert scale with responses ranging from “never, rarely, sometimes, often, and always.” The questions were grouped into three categories of stressors: individual; group; and organizational. Within these three groups there were 12 variables being tested. The six variables under individual level stressors included role conflict, role ambiguity, responsibility for others, qualitative/quantitative work underload, qualitative/quantitative work overload, and harassment/sexual harassment. There were two variables under the group level stressors: cohesiveness and intragroup conflict. The four remaining variables were included in the organization-level stressors: changes in technology; physical working conditions; management styles and attitudes; and structure of the organization. Part Two of the survey looked at the effects of occupational stress. This part of the survey contained 15 open-ended questions where the subjects could be more expressive as to how work stressors affected them. The questions involved “yes/no,” multiple-choice, and ranking types of questions. After answering the specific questions, subjects then had the opportunity to expand and explain their answers. There were three major effects evaluated by these questions: behavioral; cognitive; and physiological. The behavioral effects questions asked about job satisfaction, job performance, absenteeism, turnover, accidents, and substance abuse. Decision-making, concentration, and forgetfulness were the three variables related to cognitive effects. Physical effects used questions having to do with health concerns and burnout. The final three questions asked the subjects to rank order their top five causes of stress, rank order their top three solutions to stress, and to fill in some biographical information including age, gender, name of company, years with company, and job title. 2.3. Procedures The Occupational Stress Survey was administered to all subjects in all organizations. In each, there was a room set aside for taking the survey, and several different time slots were made available for subjects to take the survey that took about 30 minutes to complete. In all organizations, employees were allowed to take time off of work to complete the survey, and were not required to use their regular break times for this purpose. Following completion of the surveys they were collected and analyzed. The same experimenter presented the surveys to all subject groups, and answered questions that were asked. 2.4. Results The surveys were evaluated and scored for all subjects. Because of the sample size, large number of variables, and individual differences in responding, individual questionnaire items did not yield any significant differences. Thus, the questions were collapsed into three categories of responses: individual; group; and organizational sources of stress, and the data are reported as means from the five-point scales that were used. Table 1 contains the relevant means for the questionnaire responses from the different groups, and for the different categories of stress.

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Table 1. Mean survey scores for employee groups and types of stress.

Blue Collar

White Collar

Male Female Total Male Female Total Grand Total

Individual 1.8 2.1 1.9 2.2 2.5 5.3 2.2

Group 1.9 2.1 2.0 2.0 1.8 2.1 1.9

Stressors Organizational 2.2 2.3 2.3 2.2 3.0 2.6 2.4

Total 2.0 2.2 2.2 2.1 2.4 2.3 2.2

The mean scores in Table 1 are based on a 5-point scale with 1 being indicative of low stress, and 5 indicating higher levels of stress. One thing that is interesting is that the range of scores suggests that in the organizations surveyed, the general levels of stress are reasonably low. A factorial ANOVA was performed to look at the effects of Type of Occupational Group (blue-collar vs. white-collar), Gender, and Type of Stress (individual, group, organizational) on responses to the stress survey. There were no significant differences based on Organizational Group or Gender, nor were there any significant interactions. However, there was a significant main effect for Type of Stress (F=5.89, p, Frink, D.D., Gilmore, D.C., & Kacmar, K.M. (1994). Understanding as an antidote for the dysfunctional consequences of organizational politics as a stressor. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 24, 1204-1220. French, J.R.P., Caplan, R.D., & Harrison, R.V. (1982). The Mechanisms of Job Stress and Strain. Chichester, England: Wiley. Frese, M. (1985). Stress at work and psychosomatic complaints: A causal interpretation. Journal of Applied Psychology, 70, 214-238. Frese, M., & Zapf, D. (1988). Methodological issues in the study of work stress: Objective vs. subjective measurement of work stress and the question of longitudinal studies. In C.L. Cooper & R. Payne, (Eds.), Courses, Coping and Consequences of Stress at Work. (pp. 375-411). New York: Wiley. Friedman, M., & Rosenman, R.H. (1974). Type A Behavior and Your Heart. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Gaines, J., & Jermier, J.M. (1983). Emotional exhaustion in high stress organizations. Academy of Management Journal, 31, 567-586. Ganster, D.C., Fusilier, M.R., & Mayes, B.T. (1986). Role of social support in the experience of stress at work. Journal of Applied Psychology, 71, 102-110. Greenberg, J., & Baron, R.A. (1995). Behavior in Organizations: Understanding and Managing the Human Side of Work, 5th Ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Greenberg, J., & Baron, R.A. (1997). Behavior in Organizations: Understanding and Managing the Human Side of Work, 6th Ed. Upper Saddle River, NY: Prentice Hall. Iaffaldano, M.T., & Muchinsky, P.M. (1985). Job satisfaction and job performance: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 97, 251-273. Ivancevich, J.M. & Matteson, M.T. (1980). Stress and Work: A Managerial Perspective. Glenville, Illinois: Scott Foresman. Iverson, R.D., Olekalns, M., & Erwin, P.J. (1998). Affectivity, organizational stressors, and absenteeism: A causal model of burnout and its consequences. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 52, 1-23. Jackson, S.E. & Schuler, RS. (1985). A meta-analysis and conceptual critique of research on role ambiguity and role conflict in work settings. Organizational Behavior & Human Decision Process, 36, 16-78. Jenkins, J.M. (1993). Self-monitoring and turnover: The impact of personality on intent to leave. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 14, 83-91. Jermier, J.M., Gaines, J., & McIntosh, N.J. (1989). Reactions to physically dangerous work: A conceptual and empirical analysis. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 10, 15-33. Karasek, R. (1979). Job demands, job decision latitude, and marital strain: Implications for job redesign. Administrative Science Quarterly, 24, 285-306. Kirmeyer, S.L., & Dougherty, T.W. (1988). Work load, tension, and coping: Moderating effects of supervisor support.

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Volume 1, Number 12 Notes

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